A socio-political and cultural blog from the Republic of Ireland. The truth about the Celtic Tiger, it's demise and other related matters. Fír-eolas ar an Tíogar Cheiltigh, a thurnamh agus nithe gaolmhara eile.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Culminating a week of activities against the NATO aggressors Summit meeting in Chicago and the G8 Summit in Camp David, near Washington (moved there by President Obama to avoid meeting planned protests by a wide range of groups) thousands of US Peace Activists

and supporters staged the largest protest seen in Chicago for many years on Sunday, 20 May. An estimated 20,000 protesters took part in Sunday's demonstration despite policeterror tactics and city government attacks and slanders on the organisers for months on endsince the protest was announced in January this year.

As protesters tried to move east toward McCormick Place, police tried "kettling" tactics which produced reaction by some protesters being pushed by police. Officers responded by swinging their batons. The two sides were locked in a standoff for
nearly two hours, with police blocking the protesters' path and the
crowd refusing to leave. Some protesters had blood streaming down their
faces.

Police were seen making arrests one by one and leading individual demonstrators away in handcuffs. After
the clash near McCormick Place, Chicago Police Superintendent Garry
McCarthy said at a news conference that the protests of the NATO Summit
resulted in 45 people being arrested and four officers suffering injuries — one from a stab wound in the leg.

Police appeared to be using precisely the tactics Superintendent
Garry McCarthy said they would — extracting individuals from the crowd
and quickly getting them away from the rest of the demonstrators. Several
times they were seen pulling protesters into a line of officers,
which parted briefly before quickly closing ranks again. Police
also used "sound cannons" tocause psychological shock and disorient demonstrators.Three
activists who travelled to Chicago for the summit were accused of
manufacturing Molotov cocktails in a plot to attack Obama's campaign
headquarters, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's home and other targets.Their lawyers
argued that the police had trumped up the charges to frighten away
peaceful protesters. They told a judge it was undercover officers who
brought the firebombs to an apartment on Chicago's South Side where the
men were arrested. Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a former member of Obama's Government, tried all sorts of bureaucratic tricks and legal manueveres to restrict the right to demonstrate and protest in the city since the beginning of the year.

On Sunday, police said two other men were also
in custody on charges they discussed making bombs prior to the summit. Police said the pair were not connected to the earlier arrests,
although defence lawyers said all five were targeted by authorities to
scare protesters away from the meeting.

New clashes erupted later in the night. Hundreds
of protesters gathered late Sunday night near the Art Institute of
Chicago as first lady Michelle Obama hosted a dinner for spouses of NATO
leaders inside. At least 100 Chicago police officers in riot gear were also at the scene.

At the rally, many military veterans threw away medals they had received from being in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan to wild cheers from the assembled crowds. The large demonstration indicated the widespread revulsion in the United States against the aggressive war-mongering of their Governments including the current Obama regime which has increased troop levels in Afghanistan to an all-time high. "Basically NATO is used to keep the poor poor and the rich rich," said
John Schraufnagel, who travelled from Minneapolis to Chicago for the
march. Since the end of the Cold War, he said, the Alliance has become
"the enforcement arm of the ruling 1 percent, of the capitalist 1
percent."

On Monday, 21 May, several hundred protesters gathered outside Boeing Aircraft offices in the City to continue the anti-NATO event. Boeing is one of the largest contractors to the US military who profit from the slaughter and destruction wreaked by NATO on innocent civiliansin many countries around the world.

Russia Today reported:

"NATO critics flocking to the city to stage mass protests make no
secret of their negative attitude towards the alliance. Demonstrators
want the money ($55M) pumped into the summit and its security to be spent on
real needs.

RT’s Anastasia Churkina interviewed people on the city’s streets and
their remarks about NATO have been overwhelmed by bitter resentment.

“NATO is a US-commanded military alliance responsible for wars and war crimes on a global basis,” one woman told RT.

“NATO as an organization no longer has a mandate. Occupy Chicago
denies and demands NATO disband. They have no more purpose. They are
spending our taxpayer dollars on wars and to bomb and destroy and murder
civilians all over the world,” accuses Occupy Chicago press committee member Micah Philbrook.

“There is a pro-peace majority in the United States. We oppose
war. We oppose the world’s pre-eminent war-making organization NATO.
And we have a human agenda and a humane agenda that has no place for
war,” political analyst and writer Rick Rozoff told RT".

Friday's Protest:

Thousands of protesters also took to Chicago’s streets ahead of the
NATO Summit on Friday, 18 May. National Nurses United teamed up with trade
unions and the Occupy movement to form a mass rally in the city centre.

The NNU members demanded a Robin Hood tax to be introduced
on banks’ financial transactions. That demand was a supplement to the protest
against proposals to cut back nurses pensions.

“We’ve worked 30 years for them and don’t want to get rid of
them,” said Deb Holmes, a nurse at a hospital in Worcester.

Former Rage Against the Machine guitarist and Occupy
activist Tom Morello performed live at the event.

Statement of the Combined USA Peace Groups:

"On May 19-21, Mayor 1% Rahm Emanuel will bring to Chicago
military and civilian representatives of the 28-nation US-commanded and largely
US-financed North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and heads of state and
finance ministers of the G-8 world economic powers.

They meet on behalf of the 1% of the world, the rich and the
powerful, the bankers and generals. Their agenda is to continue to impose
austerity, or poverty, by cutting social spending for workers and the poor to
maintain profitability for the rich and to launch more wars to stop the rise of
the poor nations of the Third World.

The people of this fine city do not want these summits. The
mayor has his own agenda. In anticipation of widespread opposition to the war
& poverty agenda of the NATOG8, Mayor Rahm Emanuel passed a set of
first-amendment crushing ordinances, known as “Sit Down Shut Up”, to stifle the
exercise of free speech and assembly during the summits. The mayor
single-handedly gave himself the ability to issue no-bid security contracts and
deputize out-of-town law enforcement while imposing harsh restrictions on
parades, marches and demonstrations.

But we will not be silenced. We will stand up to this
corrupt system and say enough! Join Occupy Chicago, Coalition Against NATO/G8
(CANG8), the Midwest Antiwar Mobilization and many more as we gather in Chicago
in May!

The Coalition Against NATO/G8 is a broad formation that
includes labor unions, community groups, anti-war and international solidarity
groups and faith based activists. From the CANG8 website:

Protest the
NATO/G8 Summit on Saturday, May 19th, 2012!

Noon rally at
Daley Plaza, then march to McCormick Place!

Join in a legal,
permitted, family-friendly march and rally that will end within sight and sound
of the summit at McCormick Place!

At the invitation of the White House, military and civilian
representatives of the 28-nation US-commanded and largely US-financed North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and heads of state and finance ministers of
the G-8 world economic powers are meeting in Chicago, May 19-21, 2012. To that
we say…

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the eight
wealthy G8 nations will

gather in Chicago May 19th to 21st for "summit" meetings
to plan future strategies.

They will make plans to continue the war and occupation in
Afghanistan and to carryout an aggressive new nuclear doctrine in violation of
international law. They will make plans for new wars and occupations in the Middle East, Africa,
Latin America, and elsewhere. And they will decide to continue escalating arms expenditures,
expandingthe massive imperial system of environmentally destructive military
bases around the world.

Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has reinvented itself
and now claims the"right" to conduct military attacks anywhere in the world on decision
of an “international community” -- the elite One Percent in the NATO nations.
Participationin NATO is leading to increased military capabilities of the European
countries and of the European Union, which collaborates closely with NATO on military strategy and which has been declared in "Strategic Alliance" with NATO. NATO persists in arrogating to itself the "right" to unilaterally
initiate a nuclear strike against any perceived threat.

This rapacious militarism benefits only the One Percent. The
people of the NATO/G8

poverty, racism, sexism, militarization of schools and loss
of youth to war, environmental

damage, and destruction of civil rights and democratic
systems of government. The

people in countries victimized by NATO war crimes and
occupation pay with the theft of their resources and the destruction of their homes,
livelihoods, communities, and

cultures - and often with their lives. Though more than
50,000 Libyans died in the recent

NATO intervention, NATO deems that venture a
"success" and a model for future

interventions.

G8 countries comprise only 14% of the world's population,
but account for more than

70% of the world's military expenditures. All of the G8
countries except Russia are

members of NATO, and the 28-member countries of NATO account
for 75% of world

military expenditures, with the U.S. covering the majority
of NATO costs. Just a portion

of this spending could save the lives of millions of people
who are in desperate needand would provide essential resources for education and medical
care and to reverse

environmental damage, and much more.

We refuse to accept the NATO/G8 policies of the elite One
Percent. We refuse to live

under the terror of nuclear weapons. We demand an end to the
nuclear arms race and

the dismantling of foreign military bases. We demand the
immediate withdrawal of all

U.S. and NATO troops from Afghanistan. We demand an end to
threats of interventionin Syria, Iran, and other countries. We demand that
international law and civil liberties be

respected and that resources be directed to serve human
needs.

We call on all supporters of Peace to join with the US Peace Movement public protestsin Chicago, May 2012.

First Signatories (as of February 21st 2012):

Reiner Braun (ICC No to War – No to NATO, Germany), Claire
Chastain (ICC No to War– No to NATO, France), Luis Gutierrez-Esparza (ICC No to War – No to NATO, Mexico), Kristine Karch (No to NATO Women’s Network, Germany), Tobias
Pflüger (ICC No to War – No to NATO, Germany), Elsa Rassbach (ICC No to War –
No to NATO, USA/Germany), (Lucas Wirl (Germany), Michael Youlton (ICC No
to War – No to NATO, Ireland).